Sandra Gail Lambert

Yodeling Lesbian Twins - Jools and Lynda Topp

I want to move to New Zealand and have one of these sisters (I don't care which one.  Either or both would be fine.) leave her girlfriend for me.  My far distant second choice is that this movie is soon available from Netflix.

The Whitehorse Poetry Festival

Remember the poet Clea Roberts?  She's and the rest of her poetry collective have been busy back in the Yukon putting together the second Whitehorse Poetry Festival.  

Michael Ondaatje, C.D. Wright, Don McKay, Erin Moure, and Adam Sol will be part of readings, panel discussions, craft talks, and a youth poetry workshop with an open mic.

If you've ever wanted to visit the Yukon, this is the perfect event to anchor your trip.  Here's a guide to visiting Whitehorse in the summer. 

Writer friends

From the people I met years ago at a writer's conference who click "like" on my Facebook announcement that I've finished a draft to the fellow novelist who, in the whirlwind, anxious midst of preparing her own revised draft for an agent, says "send me the chapter to read," there is no way I'd be able to do all this that I'm doing without writer friends.  

Who knew?  I didn't.  All I knew was that I had done all I could in my comfortable, supportive home sphere.  In 2004 I searched the Internet for writing conferences that would be easy to drive to.  I found The Atlantic Center for the Arts, applied, and was put on the alternate list.  A week before the residency I got the call, and I'm still getting support (and giving it, I hope) to writers I met there.   

A poet friend called today to say she's been accepted at a writers conference this summer - her first.  She's taking her poems out there into the world.  I hung up, held the phone to my chest, and thought about how precious we all are to each other.  Thus, this post.   

Mobi mats

The Ochlockonee River State Park camping trip was grand.  I have a first revision (except for this pesky little bit I need to write set in 1704) done.  It's actual fun to go through it all with a whole book perspective - with a wide, unobstructed view.  Which segues quite neatly into Mobi Mats.

I don't think I've ever blogged/ranted about my aversion to these boardwalks they're building at State Parks.  They get all this money, spend all this time, have good intentions, and then build "accessible" boardwalks with railings so high that I feel like a steer in a slaughter house chute or that I'm in some 1700's jail and should have a tin cup to bang against the wooden slats.  I don't think you get to call it "accessible" if I can't use my binoculars, take a photo, or lean my elbows (or at least my chin) on the top, stare into the vista, and ponder the meaning of life. 

Well, at Bald Point State Park, in addition to the mean jokes of boardwalks that other parks have, they have Mobi Mats.  I found it stretched out over the sand.  No one was around.  I thought "what the heck, my phone has bars, and took off.  I ended up at this lagoon.  I pondered the meaning of life.  

 

Here at home, online again, I looked up the Mobi Mat website.  This technology is brought to us by Deschamps the "world leader in tactical mobility since 1860."  Check out the promotional photos of tanks rolling over sand, helicopters landing in sand, troops disembarking in sand.  Yikes.  The park volunteer said that one strip of Mobi Mat cost $27,000.     

Looking for Sarracenia

Hey All,

Tomorrow I'm finding my way over the flooded Suwannee River to the Ochlockonee River State Park.  For ten days, I'll be living in my van, parked between a bay and a pine flats chock full of wildflowers.  I've packed my six pillows, printer, extra ink, binoculars, computer, protein powder, two bags of books, camera, and only four sets of earrings.  I'm ready. 

My goals include revising this next chapter all the way through, writing up an application for a residency, visiting with a writer friend and her partner, and searching out sarracenias (pitcher plants).

It is unlikely that I'll be on the Internet until I return.  Here's the link to the eaglets.  Please check on them for me while I'm gone. 

The Sound of Music - it's not baby eagles, but it's fun.

I first saw the sound of music in Oslo, Norway on one of those fabulous theatre screens that curve so much that if you sit in the front rows (which I did because those were the cheaper seats) you have to turn your head to see from one side of the screen to the other.  Close-up shots are faces as tall as two floors. 

I was thirteen.  I loved Julia Andrews.  I had little awareness that most of the audience seated around me had fresh memories of the Nazi occupation of their country. 

Spring Native Plant Sale

Are you tired of ruining another little piece of Florida with a drug-addicted, water-wasting yard? Come to the Native Plant Sale this Saturday, April 11 from 8:30am until 12:30pm here in Gainesville at the Morningside Nature Center. 

  

But if you want to be one of the cool kids, then come on Friday from 4:30pm to 6:30pm, join up, and shop the members night.  I'll be there cashiering.  Some vendors sell right out on Friday.

Every image on this post is a native plant that grows in my yard.  Butterflies, reptiles, and birds abound, and I have not watered or fertilized, or really done anything at all to the plants but throw dirt around - and admire them. 

There are chicks!!!

Memories - Brought to me by Facebook

Lorraine in Atlanta has been posting old photos on Facebook, and there I am, thirty years ago, in photographs I've never seen before.  It's odd and wonderful.  Here are a few of the images - some I'm in, some not.  To see them all, here's the link.

 

 

 

Eagle Cam

The three eggs in this nest (in New Jersey) are due to hatch starting on April 4.  That's tomorrow!